Over the past six years, Eric J. Rickenbach has crisscrossed the state teaching rescuers how to respond to accidents on farms.

Heavy equipment, dangerous machinery, and the threat of barn and silo fires present special challenges to the legion of volunteers who respond to emergencies on Pennsylvania's farms.

We are in need of donations of old or damaged rope equipment and hardware for training purposes.

We are going to start posting pictures of some of the scenarios we have done over the last few years.  If you would like to have a picture posted from your class, send it in!

As summer nears and farmers spend more time in the fields with big machines, the likelihood of farm-related accidents rises sharply.

In Pennsylvania, June and July are the worst months for farm fatalities, according to the Penn State University College of Agricultural Sciences. That's the peak season for working the fields, and children are out of school and exposed to farm hazards.

The Crash Recovery System is a valuable tool on traffic accident scenes with entrapment. To underline this we’ve collected a couple of case studies and example incidents on our website. In this Newsletter you can read how and where the Crash Recovery System is used by the career fire department in Linz (Austria) and get more information about their experiences.

Here is a great training idea from a fellow vehicle rescue instructor in Germany.  It has some great ideas for training... 
 
By Jörg Heck, Technical Manager, Moditech Rescue Solutions B.V.

The Moditech Crash Recovery System ("CRS") is a valuable tool for rescuers that are called to perform vehicle extrication of trapped occupants at vehicle accidents. It allows rescuers to gather technical information about the vehicle in a short period of time. Using the CRS as part of the size-up of the vehicle, for example to identify cut versus non-cut areas, the overall safety to the rescue operation can be increased while the extrication time can be shortened.

However, it is not easy to practice the use of the Crash Recovery System during training, primarily because there is a lack of late-model vehicles to train on. Usually vehicles for training are older, junk vehicles from the scrap yard that do not provide a real technological challenge, as compared to vehicles manufactured today.

Some great video of airbag deployment:

Lancaster county emergency responders rescue trapped farmer on Monday, July 6. 2009.  This article appearred in the July 11, 2009 edition of the Lancaster Farming.

The PA Voluntary Rescue Service Recognition program through the Department of Health and the State Fire Commissioner's office has been revised for 2009. The Vehicle and Machinery portion has been updated, and a Swiftwater component has been added.

Every once in a while you encounter something strange or unusual with a vehicle.  And this past Saturday was one of those times.